> the job OpenAI started.

They didn't just "start" it though - they released slop papers.

That's finishing it - not starting it as far as scientific publishing is concerned.

> Or are you saying the community has no incentive to do that because there is no reward/recognition for doing that?

Not exactly - but that is part of it.

I think what would have went over better is:

1. Immediately announce a solution has been found.

2. Do not publish the solution.

3. Put out an open request for anyone with experience in the area who wants to get involved to help collaborate on a construction and human-comprehensible paper. Accept anyone who can demonstrate potentially useful work/experience in the field/problem. Share the solution with them after they sign some kind of NDA that they won't independently publish or share the solution/work.

4. Work with people until a paper is ready (I mean actually ready - not the kind of slop that they released).

5. Publish. Include names of everyone who made meaningful contributions to the paper (not just the proof).

EDIT: Notice the incentive with my proposed second path is that it gives OpenAI an incentive to improve the interpretability of its proofs. This is a good thing! The maths community would be thrilled to actually gain understanding from such releases, and OpenAI would be happy because they could more quickly and independently publish their results. At the moment the "value" of their mathematics research "product" is low because of the lack of this interpretability, and this current approach is simultaneously destroying the opportunity value of the community as well as the incentive for OpenAI to ever improve on what's missing.